In another move that takes the company beyond its more familiar territories in and around New York City, Lightpath has unveiled an enhanced long-haul network. They are now offering waves and Ethernet between eight major US cities in addition to their core metro capabilities. … [visit site to read more]
An Indian industry grouping has suggested that most telecom towers still need fiberisation, a vast number still need to be deployed and that recent amended Right of Way (RoW) rules are not being met by some Indian states.
According to TR Dua, Director-General of the Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA), in order to meet the growing demand for large bandwidth and ultra-low latency that 5G implies, 65 per cent of telecom towers still need to be fiberised and another 1,200,000 towers need to be deployed by the 2023-24 financial year.
For infrastructure deployment to facilitate 5G services in the country various other requirements need to be met, DIPA suggests, including Right of Way facilitation, access to street furniture (particularly for small cells), fibre and backhaul deployment and high densification of infrastructure.
As we reported at the time, in 2022 RoW application procedures for small cells were simplified as a response to the likelihood that 5G would require many more small cells and much more use of street furniture. The government also introduced a centralised RoW portal that offers a single interface for ISPs, mobile operators and infrastructure providers to apply for RoW approvals for installing infrastructure.
According to India’s Economic Times, however, only a few states, including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Sikkim, Tripura, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Assam and Ladakh, have aligned their state policy with the Indian Telegraph Right of Way – Amendment Rules, 2022.
That said, notwithstanding DIPA’s concerns, both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel seem to be forging ahead with 5G rollout – for now.
Three expanded partnerships and another high speed upgrade from around the world: … [visit site to read more]
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We recently shared a few of the “Lesser-known Benefits of Partnering with Bicom Systems” and today we have two more ways that Bicom Systems allows you to take back the control of your business, your solution, and your customers.
In speaking with incoming partners, we have heard that some vendors ask for information about your end users and then target them directly. This does not align with a reseller model that focuses on partnership and integrity.
Reclaim the control of your business and customers with a white label platform. Bicom Systems gives partners a fully developed and supported platform with zero branding, so you can take it to market as your own. You control: pricing, marketing, and customers. We are happy to support you in every step, but will not ask for any customer details or advertise ourselves through branded solutions. (Learn more in our blog post The Benefits of a White Label Provider.)
As a committed participant in the reseller channel, Bicom Systems would never attempt to sell directly to your customers. Also to that purpose, we never publish prices on our website – so as not to compromise your ability to earn a higher margin. (Learn more in our blog post Why We Don’t Publish Our Prices.)
The bottom line is that Bicom Systems is partner-centric with a strong focus on integrity and mutual trust. As we always say, your success is our success.
The future is in the Cloud, there is no doubt about it. But we recognize that not every business or organization is prepared to make the move yet, if at all.
Small on-site call centers, for example, may prefer an on-site PBX that gives them complete control over their servers and data. Organizations with sensitive data may be compelled by law to keep everything in-house. Large enterprises may have the budget to invest up front and hire a dedicated IT team to do all of the work themselves.
Whatever the situation may be, we want the choice to be yours, not restricted by the deployment models you have (or don’t have) available. Stop turning away or losing customers that need a traditional solution. PBXware is available in both hosted and on-site environments. Learn more on our Deployment page.
And let’s not forget about the opportunity that comes with having on-site customers. You can gently market your hosted solution to your own customer base, offering a slow and flexible transition phase if that’s what the customers needs. Let’s bring customers on board rather than turning them away.
Who is holding the reins to your business and your future – yourself or your provider? Bicom Systems prefers to give all control to our partners, cheering you on from behind the curtain. If this appeals to you, contact us today so we can start a conversation.
Some regional fiber news plus an SDN technology upgrade: … [visit site to read more]
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Developing Telecoms met recently with Huawei FinTech and Mobile Financial Services (MFS) team, to discuss the development and growth of Huawei’s MFS business. The interview started by asking them to outline how Huawei first entered the MFS market.
HUAWEI: Huawei first became involved in MFS when it won a contract with a famous African operator. After the growth of mobile finance business, the operator was developing its own software for mobile financial services. The branding of mobile finance for this operator was already the leading name in mobile phone finance by 2010/11. The service was feature phone based, but included some early kinds of purchasing services. The operator was also in the process of establishing services in other markets and executed an RFP for a technology partner to support this goal and Huawei was chosen.
Huawei believes it won the RFP based on 2 strengths, its R&D and Engineering capability to deliver a platform with the performance, reliability, flexibility and availability which establish the foundations for the trust you need from customers and businesses to successful grow a FinTech ecosystem. Secondly Huawei’s commitment to deliver the platform and migration to support the needs of the largest and most complex market, Kenya, where Huawei has now successfully supported a decade of growth.
HUAWEI: Since development of the current FinTech products started in 2012, Huawei’s has deployed its platform across all of the existing mobile finance markets and expanding across Asia and Africa to more than 30 markets.
Based published mobile financial services data, and Excluding China and PayPal, Huawei’s platform supports more than 50% of the global MFS market activity. In total Huawei’s FinTech solutions now provide access to digital financial services to over 400 million people in markets worldwide who otherwise would not have this benefit.
HUAWEI: One of Huawei’s most recent customers is telebirr in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa, with over 120 million people. Prior to 2019 around 55% of the population did not have access to financial services due to lack of bank coverage, and the total mobile financial services user base in Ethiopia was around 10 million people.
telebirr was launched by Ethio Telecom with help from Huawei in May 2021 with the aim of meeting the government’s target of increasing financial inclusion. telebirr is aiming to achieve this by enabling rapid financial transactions throughout Ethiopia including the most remote areas. The service also aims to transform the overall economy and help Ethiopia move towards becoming a cashless society and improve cash flow throughout the economy.
Another advantage that telebirr is offering is to provides a more ‘democratic’ digital ecosystem, in particular giving women control over their own earnings and finances, enabling payments to be made directly to women, and for women to control their own savings and finances. The DNA behind successful FinTech services is to design your business, product and service from the beginning to meet everyone’s needs rather than to target specific segments.
HUAWEI: telebirr has gained the support of over 98,000 agents, of which 30%+ are run by women, 25,000 merchants, 18 banks and over 52 public and private institutions. It is currently serving 28.6 million users and making a total value of over 288 billion Birr transactions.
Moreover, financial inclusion in Ethiopia has increased by around 15%, and is well on the way to achieving the government’s five year target in under two years. Mobile Financial service adoption is accelerating globally and this has benefited telebirr and Ethiopia. If you compare with another market launched in 2018, a similar level of growth took over 3 years to achieve. When telebirr launched, it registered a million customers in two weeks; it has taken other successful markets a year or more to do that.
telebirr and Ethiopia was able to benefit from Huawei’s extensive experience in MFS in other emerging markets. Rather than stating with a simple point-of-sale (POS) transactional service, it started with dozens of new services based on the App, USSD and SMS, including send and receive money, deposit cash, remittance, pay bills, withdraw cash, fundraising, bulk disbursement, ticket purchase, utility service, passport service, digital lottery, donate, credit loan, micro loan, saving services and more. Other bank players in Ethiopia only provide basic services and, moreover, there are interconnection issues between different banks.
To do this telebirr and Huawei had to gain the backing of the regulators who were willing to accept things like holding biometric information electronically and registering customers electronically by matching faces and ID cards. This is actually more reliable than giving the information to a physical person. telebirr is now in the process of launching new payment services and financial services, on top of the basic wallet. It’s quite an incredible journey to see that take off in one of the most populous countries in North Africa.
HUAWEI: The first point I want to emphasise is that our solution is modular. The core product consists of the wallet, the finance services and the payment services. We then add enabling technologies for API integration, APP development frameworks, and for the future, AI Technologies to enable smarter more secure ecosystems. A Key benefit of Huawei’s extensive R&D and software portfolio means that we can easily obtain and pre-integrate such world class enabling technologies to accelerate the growth and development of FinTech ecosystems.
The second point is that, in line with our product strategy, one product is the basis for all of our implementations, adapted, scaled and integrated for the needs of each market. For example, the needs of our largest market like Kenya drives key standards for performance, security, availability and reliability to the highest possible levels. The benefit of the single product strategy is a reduction in complexity and more focussed and effective use of software development investments, this also means that for all of our customers there is one product from the largest to the smallest market.
HUAWEI: The service models for MFS are now mature, and China in particular has had them for a number of years. Operators in emerging markets understand that to be successful in MFS it is now about more than the technology. Operators need to help their customers become more digital. Success will be dictated by the quality of the total package of services operators provide, and about developing super-apps to deliver these to compete with OTT service providers.
DT: Thank you for sharing your insights.
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Well, if you wondered what BAI Communications was going to do with its growing portfolio of network infrastructure companies, then your question was resolved yesterday. BAI plans to combine all its brands under the new name of Boldyn Networks. … [visit site to read more]
